Happy July, faithful readers! I hope you are enjoying the warm summer sun and fun? I know I have been! Canoe rides, barbecues, fireworks! My favourite time of year!

So I have found myself doing a bit of online research this afternoon... I have listed hundreds of items on Craigslist for many many years (since 2006, I believe!). The first thing I ever sold was my brother in law's car... I remember it like yesterday... however, I am finding lately that the spam is becoming a bit thicker, and recently my ads are starting to get "flagged for removal" for no reason whatsoever. Getting a response from them is like talking to a wall, they don't communicate via email and via online forums I am reading they are even worse to deal with on the phone...

What's a monkey to do?

*So the search begins. I have used www.swidjit.com, so that is the first place I went. This site is truly 100% Tiny Town based. However, it seems that spreading the word isn't going as well as maybe Alex had hoped. The most recent "Have It" post was over a month ago... so I moved on.

Upon a little bit of search, I found an article touting "Top 5 Websites Similar To Or Like Craigslist". Perfect! Well... not really... here is what I found:

Their #1 pick is a site called backpage.com. My town is on the list! Great! It says there are over 2,000 listings in the buy, sell, trade section! Wonderful! Lets take a look... Guns. Guns. Links to websites about guns. Links to websites about hunting excursions, ammunition, camouflage, trophy hunting, tactical concealment... oh wait! Here's an ad for a teacup puppy! For $4000... in San Antonio... nothing local whatsoever... moving on...

#2 pick is a site called Oodle.com. Okay! One of our local colleges is listed! Hooray! Let's see what is listed. At first glance, looking at everything, it looks like a whole lot of pets for sale. Wait, I just spotted a "Merchandise" link. Okay... Definitely local... sort of. Lots of ads for items in other towns that are 30-45 minutes away... Garage sales, 5 listed. All 30 minutes away. Furniture: 12 things listed, only one of them is actually furniture. Moving on...

#3 pick: Sell.com. Looks more like an online auction site than local. My town is not on the list. Closest city is an hour away. Searched the marketplace and there are exactly three things listed in that area. Then diet pills, ritalin, and a bunch of websites or links to sites located in other states... Moving on...

#4 pick: eBayclassifieds.com. This I was trying to avoid... I eBay but I would rather deal locally, and with real people. Central New York. Okay. Tiny Town is listed. Okay... 12 items for sale. One listed last month for a local antiques house. The rest over 2 months old. Moving on...

Last but not least their #5 pick similar to Craigslist: geebo.com. Tiny Town is on the list. 20 items listed for sale. Most recent listing was ten days ago. Some collectibles... coins and vintage Barbies. At least two are ads that carried over from eBay Classifieds.

Bust. What else? Gumtree.com, if you live in Ireland or England. USFreeAds.com... one listing in Tiny Town for a chihuahua stud... Recycler.com... 10 listings, almost all of them piggybacked from Oodle (I guess they live up to their name... they even recycled the ads!).

Domesticsale.com. Looks promising. Lots of categories. Website laid out well. A-a-and absolutely nothing listed locally. Olx.com... closest city is an hour away. 69 things listed, only one within the past month. In this article, in the comments section, people suggested more. Power to the people, right?! Let's see... Metrolistings.org... not a single listing in the sale/buy category for Tiny Town. But there is a category for "Job Seeekers" (someone needs to proofread their website, methinks). Freeadstime.org... same thing. Nada. Displayad.com gave me a "Forbidden 404 Not Found Error" message. (**Correction, as of 29 March 2016, DisplayAd.com is up and running... however nothing listed in Tiny Town.)

Kijiji (classifiedads.com) looks okay. I believe this is also powered by eBay. It has many listings, but it is a bit difficult to navigate the site unless you are looking for something specific. If you just want to do a general search of everything for sale, you have to click on each ad to see where it is located... a few initial ads that I clicked on were anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour away, so prepare to either 1. Know exactly what you are looking for, or 2. Prepare to spend some time looking around.

Kroobe.com, no listings matching my criteria. Hoobly.com, only 400 listings in New York, one within an hour of me. Everydayclassifieds.com... England. Ablewise.com only allows you to narrow a search to the United States. When I typed in "Tiny Town, New York" to the search box, a bunch of used car ads came up.Webcosmo.com has a bunch of ads listed in the Tiny Town area, but like Kijiji, you have to click on each individual ad only to discover that this ad is in Knoxville, that ad is in California...

The next morning, I remembered that a friend had told me about a site called "Craigslook", so I figured I would give it a shot. This actually looks semi-promising. First, I found another site called www.Reachoo.com. Reachoo (if you can weed through all the used cars) is starting to show ads that I have seen on Craigslist, so it is a possibility. Again, you have to go from category to category (it would be nice to have an option to simply NOT look at used cars), but most ads have good pictures. Actually, Reachoo looks to be designed so you can upload videos as opposed to pictures, which they tout as a plus to a seller.

When I typed in "Craigslook", it actually brought me to Claz.org. With a little more searching, I refined the search to my town. Claz.org looks like a good alternative because it, too, encompasses ads from MANY of the other sites all listed here and puts them in one place. Backpage, Reachoo, Geebo... the gang is all here!

I guess the moral of the story for today, faithful readers, is that there are plenty of alternatives to Craigslist out there, depending on where you live. I have resolved to staying with it for now... and hope that something better comes along. Kijiji or Claz seem to be close behind, but I will stick with Craig. And yard sales...

If anyone has any other suggestions, feel free to let me know. Until then... Be well, and I will see you next time!